METRO BOSS'S TOP MISSION: CUSTOMER `RESPECT'

David Katz took over in January as director of airports for Wayne County, overseeing Detroit Metropolitan and Willow Run airports. He replaced Robert Braun, who held the job seven years.

Katz has worked for the county for 11 years, coordinating policy development and administration for eight executive departments with combined budgets of $1.9 billion and more than 5,000 employees. County officials credit Katz with successfully lobbying the federal government for more than $200 million in grants for airport projects, including $65 million to build the south access road and $150 million to complete the planned midfield terminal financing package.

As head of the airports, Katz will oversee the planned terminal expansion, which will cost an estimated $850 million.

Katz visited with Crain's after his appointment.

What's your overall assessment of the airport?

It's obvious to everybody who travels that there clearly needs to be some dramatic changes made and some new approaches taken to make this a first-class facility. Too often, in my view, we spend time alibiing about the limited space, ... that you've got a terminal built in the '50s that was prepared for 10 million. (Today) over 30 million go through there (a year).

What's the good news?

I think the future looks bright. Clearly, we're going to be in this facility for quite some time, three years at least, until the new midfield terminal is built. We have an obligation and a mandate to make sure that each person who walks through that door is treated with dignity (and) respect, that the place is clean, the place is safe and that it's a positive experience. My number-one mission is going to be to attack those kinds of goals ... clean bathrooms, access to curb space, employees who say ``please'' and ``thank you.'' I don't think the traveling public should tolerate anything less than that.

Give us an example.

We're redoing the darned bathrooms. A member of my staff was at Fairlane Town Center the other day and said, ``You're not going to believe what the Fairlane Town Center has done to their bathrooms.'' So tomorrow we're going to have a staff meeting at the bathrooms in the Fairlane Town Center in an attempt to see what the rave's about. We ought to look at how Fairlane's addressing the massive amount of people who go through their doors.

A lot of the complaints are about long waits for baggage and check-in. Is help on the way?

Well, there have already been some interim improvements made at Metro to the tune of $160 million. There was a huge investment in the baggage-handling system made by Northwest Airlines, and we are seeing results. It is getting a little easier down there. We did add an international check-in facility recently, with more stations to help accommodate people.

How can congestion be alleviated outside the airport?

We have been looking at the infrastructure leading into the airport. We can add another roadway - another lane or two down at the bottom - where people pick customers up. We think that would do a great job in helping alleviate congestion down there. We plan on moving the commercial vehicles, the rental trucks, the limos and the cabs to the outside lane, creating curb-space accessibility for more of the traveling public.

There have been some security breaches this year. What's going on?

We've had a lot of security issues recently. We've made a series of assessments following each incident. In each (case) there was a specific thing that didn't work. In one case a door failed. It was a revolving door that didn't function the way it was intended to function. There's a physical, mechanical, electronic approach we can take.

And somebody ran around a security gate. With 31 million people going through those doors every year, that's a reality that's going to happen. They emptied the terminals, (and) they made every single person get rescreened.

The question I ask is, ``Was it a security issue or an inconvenience issue?'' It's both.

Do things like this happen at other airports?

Every airport has had things slip through security checkpoints. That's unconscionable. It's a serious (issue). Clearly, we're going to continue to push both the airlines and their vendors to provide better service.

Who sets airport security standards?

The (Federal Aviation Administration) sets the standards. They lay out a set of rules. What goes on an aircraft is ultimately the airline's responsibility. They lay out a set of guidelines, and they audit them like crazy to make sure they're hitting them. And they're hitting them.

How much leverage do you have to make the airlines, particularly Northwest, shape up at Metro?

Well, they're businesspeople. They understand the customer, they really do. Now whether they demonstrate that on every instance is something we could debate, but I don't believe it's in their best interest to get the perception out there that the place is not safe or that they're not doing a good job.

People are very picky. They'll make another choice if they don't feel they're getting an adequate response. And yeah, we have a responsibility to the county of Wayne; we need to press them, we need to push them.